A Friend with Opposing Views

I have this friend who was once my enemy in regards to politics in religion.  I still do not believe her beliefs surrounding same-sex relationships are legitimate in any way.  Although she leans more “right” than “left”, she has a magnificent heart and always says that she loves me, and for once I believe someone like her.  Some people who are very religious don’t know how to love someone with opposing beliefs as them, but she does.  She asks about my husband and wants Christianity to so badly to build bridges with those they’ve hurt.  She once lived what she would call “a gay lifestyle” and knows how awful Christians can be towards the LGBT2Q community.

I know she probably wishes that I find my way to “Jesus” again but she doesn’t constantly “bible thump” our friendship, even though she may occasional share a bible verse.  In a world where we are so against our oppositions, I too would love for people the build bridges with each other.  This "Easter" weekend I even went so far as to support her when she asked me to go to a church she recently started attending.  She probably wishes that I felt some sort of “Jesus presence” during that church service, but it simply is not so.

It has been about 5 years since I outgrew Christianity and recognized that I still had a Divine presence in my life which I had even before my distorted journey through Evangelical churches.  As the pastor spoke, it seemed to me that all of these Christians were in some sort of dream state.  There were two baptisms that day and as they told their testimonies, I realized just how much I had grown since leaving the church.  The simplicity of their journeys and lack of spiritual life experiences, showed me these are generally people who want so badly to feel “God” that they truly start to believe it.  I definitely remember being in those shoes and I certainly don’t mind because of that.  The pastor also started with a prayer which was judgmental towards the wonderful social aspects of our Liberal government, stating that they are moving away from “Jesus” and that they wish Justin Trudeau would feel “God’s presence” to change his heart.  In the same prayer he ironically said how wrong it was to judge people, even though he judged our Prime Minister stating that he doesn’t have “God” in his heart.  They could have been saying the same thing about me in fact.

A couple of years ago, my blood would have been boiling because of what I witnessed, but I’ve since come to accept that people will believe what they want and that they have the right to believe what they want.  All of these people are just journeying through life like I once was, and I guess I can accept that.  If I fought with the pastor afterwards like I used to in other churches, it wouldn’t make any difference anyway because to them I am a “lost soul” with no credibility.  I’m actually okay with that, because as I look back, all their beliefs are to me are merely spiritual distortions of a much more mysterious Divinity which I am journeying with.  I don’t even necessarily wish that they end up where I am at, because although their beliefs have many social aspects which have no merit in today’s world, I remember how comforting their dream state is, that nothing else matters and “God” can get you through anything.  If it’s a crutch someone needs, then I suppose I’m generally okay with it as the new anti-gay movement although still anti, is less violent and more about gently building bridges of love.  I'm not totally okay with it, but what can I really do?  Love them I guess...

My friend bought me lunch afterwards and she didn’t ask me what I thought about the church service, maybe because I let out a small laugh in the middle of the long prayer the pastor spoke about Justin Trudeau.  She knows me, she likely knows what I was thinking.  She also recognized I was a bit tired from sitting through all of that.  I didn’t stand or sing, nor did I even really participate at all.  I sat and observed and I think that’s really all that she expected me to do as she was busy and hadn’t gotten a chance to see me lately because of her busy schedule.  The best thing I took from this, is that I have a great friend who happens to genuinely care for me, even though our views are so different.  I also found something to write about since my “writer’s block” started due to my illustrator’s suicide.  I know that I will never find my way back into Christianity ever again because I’ve matured too much and gained too much wisdom surrounding the subject to go back now.  I just hope that Christians know that although I may judge their very core beliefs at times, I still lovingly understand and wish they would try to lovingly understand me.  I have some hope for them because of my friend.

Moving On

I am at a crossroad in life as I have decided to write less about my issues with Christianity and politics.  I no longer want those past events to have such an effect on me.  It's been almost five years since I left Circle Drive Alliance Church, I feel like this blog has become too repetitive on such issues.  Yes there's still hurt there and I'm going to keep you updated as much as I can on how I am progressing with those feelings.  But I am also starting a new blog and I posted my first entry today.  Click the link below.

Witchy Willey's Blog of Peculiar Interests

As you can see, there will be much more variety!

A Common Sin

Let me make something clear…  Even though some people have imposing views which I view as harmful to their friends and family, they still have the right to have such beliefs.  Whereas I have the right tell them to give their head a shake when such views have damaged me in the past and continue to damage others.

I find nothing wrong in challenging someone, when their actions don’t even line up with the loving aspect of their own religion.  Like I said, there’s a strange and fake love in religious communities because of the politics which have taken over in some congregations.  It’s not the kind of love which is defined in their Holy book as patience and kindness.

Their excuse will likely be that “some people love in other ways”, however it’s an indifference in which unless you wish to strengthen their community politically, they simply are not there for you.  A person like this will likely just give me the cold shoulder and label me as a socialist.  That’s fine, but it will never stop me from expressing myself and exposing the emotional abuse which occurs inside your four walls.

And yes, you have the right to express yourself too, I just hope that one day the emotional abuse stops because it's the most common sin within the Christian community.

Our Salvation

“I want you to know that I'm praying for you”, it's a line we hear a lot in the LGBTQ community from family, pastors, activists, politicians, etc. Some of us may find the sentiment of this line loving but often times, most of us are left wondering exactly what these people are praying for. With some people it’s obvious that they are praying for our salvation which to them seems loving but when we look at the psychological effects of such prayers or upbringing, we begin to realize how unloving it really is.

Of course we first have to start by looking at this in their point of view, that a sinful lifestyle is a threat to the salvation of the person they are praying for, thus harmful to their journey here and into the afterlife. Some would say that it’s the most loving thing they could possibly do when they see a loved one lost in a world of sinners. But where it becomes truly unloving, is when a person becomes so narrow minded of their own beliefs that they won’t even bother hearing our passions of the heart within their spiritual community. Not that we shouldn’t understand the why of this attitude, which they think if they believe in one alternate reality which does not line up with the dogma of their sole religion, then it may be a slippery slope and supporting LGBTQ people may cause a domino effect of misguided beliefs. Thus being a threat to their very own salvation, however how does this religious psyche consider the feelings and love of others?

It’s also the relationship one forms with their Divine Presence in their eyes. They feel an intimacy with their God when following the beliefs which they were raised on, but ultimately the feelings they have about these beliefs have formed because they were raised on them. It’s no secret that when a child is exposed to certain surroundings that it shapes them in who they are today. Between the ages of 7 and 10 we are most impressionable because we have started to understand the theories being taught to us. While we start to feel enlightenment which is a basic human function that often becomes confused with intimacy with the Holy Spirit. I’ve been there and I know exactly what that is like, to where the evangelicals told me enlightenment from God was him holding me in his arms of love. Followed by a self-righteousness which gets confused with an only path to God, even though we are sinners and we all struggle. But those sins are apparently forgiven when we are on that path, and our sinful struggles are not as bad as long as we strive towards our salvation. Causing even more corruption in the church when people use the Devil as a scapegoat and give the responsibility for their actions up to God.

There’s no proof that they’re right for following this path, but there’s also no proof that they aren’t. So they become stuck in this limbo where even if they have the occasional desire to support the LGBTQ community, it gets tangled in the “if’s”, “and’s” & “but’s” of their belief system. Freewill is very limited for a person like that, and it’s become one of history’s greatest tragedies that mind control comes before loving your neighbour in religion. When around every fifty years Christian denominations make changes to their dogmas due to new understandings, it’s the LGBTQ community whom has taken the longest to receive apologies from church communities. Let us not forget that slavery was once considered righteously sound and when today Christians look back with sorrow, that still even today they remain under control of the Devil within their own communities. The Devil simply being the politics in which shows injustice to all of those within the LGBTQ community who are treated as less of human beings because of fear.

I’ve often heard Christians say “I don’t fear the LGBTQ community but…” and while they may not be afraid of our existence, they still are afraid that our ideas may infect their homes. That heaven forbid, their children listen to us with sincere hearts and that they may not believe everything that lies within their belief systems. Our civil rights movement has become something of an inconvenience to them, and that’s the ultimate reason why there are so many hateful Christians within their churches. But also why there are so many hateful people within the LGBTQ community… That’s right, many of us have expressed extreme hatred towards Christians, and while I do not condone acts of hatred… On the other hand it’s human nature for a backlash to happen when so many Christians have filled our heads with fearful echoes which has taught us to hate ourselves for basic human emotions and desires we have which we cannot change.

Not even ex-gay therapy admits to taking those desires away but only changing the ways in which we might conduct our behaviors. In other words, anyone who has gone through such therapy, is still gay and only submits to the enlightened notion to be with a woman or celibacy. All because old text from religions of ancient people who viewed us as different, began to fear us. The word homosexuality was not even in the first English translations, but referred to effeminacy most likely referred to pedophile slave enablers of prepubescent boys. Never has the bible ever referred to same-sex couples in loving relationships, or transgender people who had the ability to change their born-sex in a safe manner.

It’s bullying to tell someone to love themselves or their neighbour but to put limitations on that love because their lover has the wrong body part or they do themselves, pure and simple. But fake radical Christian love isn’t patient or kind, it’s merely a feeling of inconvenience and indifference. It’s pitying those whom they think are living lifestyles which threaten their salvation, even when it has become psychologically sound by doctors who follow their basic professional guidelines and standards to not look at us as disordered. When in all reality, the only intrinsic disorder involving LGBTQ people in regards to religion, is the so-called love they claim. Which leads to hate and indifference from both sides of the coin.

So thanks for the gesture which you deem as love, but I don’t need your pity and by pitying my husband and me, we earned more of a right to pity you. Because we’ve already experienced the narrow walls of the church and we once believed the echoes within. But you have no idea what it’s like to fully embrace the human experience and your indifferent attitudes are far worse than hate. Because we believed you to the point of suicidal tendencies which told us that if our salvation was threatened by emotions and desires which become too powerful to itch, then there is no point of waiting for our inevitable doom. Some of us would rather die than to live through the denial of our loving expressions or who we are, because if we take those away, then it feels like we’re not really there inside but just living a life in auto-pilot through our own personal Hell. Eat, pray, sin, repent, repeat but with no enjoyment in life. With temporary enlightenment of the path we may live, while the big issues which lie within human nature which really matter to us are simply the void of our salvation, while they psychologically outweigh the passion we could possibly have for your religion.

Yes, some people seem to enjoy church, they enjoy all sorts of characteristics of their religion. But think of it as a hobby, because after all there are some things one person likes while another person likes something totally different. Like our sexual orientation or inner gender, we can not choose certain aspects of who we are. Some of us simply don’t like going to church and others don’t have the interest of applying religion into their lives at all. If the kind of Christian I mention in this blog is right, I have some serious doubts on how perfect this God really is…  No one can deny the psychological ramifications which Christian culture has had on the LGBTQ community, because until you’ve lived the life of seeking love, yet shaming yourself for it, then you have no right be as arrogant as to slip in your religious comments such as “I continue to pray for you.”

I continue to bind the arrogant energy of those prayers, while my husband just doesn’t care if someone is praying for us in that manner. I consider the energy in such prayers hexes and unless we believe in them, they continue to have no effect over us. And I won’t believe in a Divine Entity which wishes us to be so inhuman as to cut off the feelings and desires of life which should be celebrated. Because in any other person’s life it’s perfectly acceptable, but in ours, even though we’re married, we have to put boundaries on basic human expressions of love in order to allow God to save us. Keep waiting for your miracles because they’re never going to happen. Or better yet, give your head a shake and stop assuming you have better answers to journeys which you are not walking in. Once you have done this, you will have progressed in society and begun tackling your sin of homophobia.

My Jesus World

      I recently visited with an Anglican friend who is looking to get the ball rolling with LGTBQ activism for those who have unresolved issues or feelings within the church, Christian or not.  I was extremely nervous, because I knew that some of the things we would be discussing, might make me emotional.  Which it did…

      My spur of emotions started when she asked me simply out of curiosity, with no ulterior motive, why I swore off of the Christian God altogether.  I told her something I hadn’t fully put together until recently.  That when I started calling my Divine relationship “Jesus”, that there was psychological baggage that came with it because of past experiences in religion.

      I never enjoyed going to church as a Catholic child, but for some reason I enjoyed my intimate relationship with what I referred to as “Jesus”.  Then the evangelical mess happened which of course you can read about in my book, and those experiences of manipulation really effected my “Jesus World”.  I wasn’t myself, and even when I took a break and came back to the church while out of the closet, I still wasn’t myself…  The name “Jesus” became a curse to my intimacy with the Divine because of the negative power it had over me.

      She asked me if I missed being a Christian… I cried and said that I missed it.  Why did I cry when there were so many negative experiences in my past?  Because I wanted to be that light in people’s lives that inspires them to be their true selves while embracing their love of “Jesus”.  But I couldn’t be myself in my “Jesus World”, and when I began the path to ministry work, I stopped.  I could tell I was shifting my personality even more and it wasn’t even anyone’s fault at the Cathedral I was attending.  They treated me very well, I was valued by them and being gay wasn’t sinful in their eyes.  Saskatoon is very lucky to have such accepting Anglicans, with the exception of one congregation which is quite homophobic because of the priest who resides there.

      The way I saw it, once I had awoken my inner-child and started over with spirituality, is that there is no real proof of who’s right about religion.  So believe in something which will give you a positive experience in spirituality.  I love that the Moon Goddess especially inspires me to strengthen my wisdom, while the Sun God inspires me to make that wisdom alive in my journey.  How the God and Goddess change as the seasons turn makes me feel beauty in the Divine.  I know that I can do as I will while doing no harm, and have good karma return to me, which makes me feel that I can simply be all that I can be, with little baggage.  The only baggage now, is how others perceive me as a witch, but their opinions simply don’t matter to me because I am no longer in my “Jesus World”.

      I recently walked in the Pride Parade with my Anglican friends as I will be supporting them and others in their new journey, and providing them with the wisdom that they seek.  I’ll feel safe as long as I wear my pentacle and stay grounded within my “Witch World”.  It’s time for me to heal souls in my own way, and help detoxify the abuse experienced in Christianity.  I hope they can do what I was unable to do and find a way back into their faith.  But if not, of course I’ll tell them that there are other options by sharing my story.  My Anglican friend let me know that this group would not be about trying to make everyone Christian, but just to simply heal and help people find the courage which we have found in order to be themselves.

Emotionally Crucified

“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”

Sounds familiar to the Christian community, doesn’t it?  However sometimes events happen in our lives in which forgiveness is impossible.  In broken homes, the backstabbing of a friend, or even being brainwashed by a church.  We may try to forgive them, even just for the sake of a weight being lifted off of our own shoulders.  But it never quite changes the stale memory of the people who hurt us, thus we’ve seen a side of them in which we are unsure about.  Who else are they hurting in this way?  Will they ever grow up?  Sometimes they never do which makes it even harder to forgive them.

Of course there are ways we can meet our abusers half way, like just trying to understand them on a personal level.  At least it’s the next best thing, right?  This may allow us to let certain things go, but that memory is still there.  Attempting to forgive people who refuse to change their ways is a lot like talking to a brick wall.  Nothing ever gets through and in my life I’ve witnessed this too many times due to religious beliefs, even though those beliefs are evermore hurtful to those who wish to do no harm and just be themselves.

Sure, I poke fun at religion at times, it’s my way to find humorous release in my life in order to cope with the abusers in my life.  Our mothers’ advice is that if you have nothing nice to say, then don’t say it at all.  That means keep any negative thoughts about one’s life to yourself, because if you let that energy out to a person whom you haven’t walked in their shoes, then they know what you think of them and pretty soon you’ll realize what they think of you.  They will just assume you’re an atypical arrogant seat warming bible thumper in the church with no real inspiration to grow in a spiritual manner in order to love your fellow neighbour.

Where abuse comes into play, is when you start giving someone unwanted attention.  This means that if a Pastor decides to arrogantly talk about homosexuality as a “sin”, then that unwanted energy towards the LGBTQ community is abuse.  There’s always someone in their own congregation struggling with who they are, and when those words are spoken they stab the well being of someone listening like knives in the heart.  What kind of spiritual relationship do you expect someone to have with the Divine if that’s the kind of dialogue used in relation to someone like them?

I have not forgiven anyone who thinks that way about me.  My sexuality is NOT the struggle, it’s forgiving those with such pitiful beliefs.  How could any reasonable person believe that after all?  A part of me says that I don’t give a flying fuck about what people think of me but that comes with an exception.  I care when it’s a friend who I have respect for and once they tell me what they think about the life that I live, it’s like poison eating away our relationship because suddenly my opinions don’t matter as much as their hurtful beliefs.  The fear in their hearts lead to an indifference to people like me and that is something that I find unforgivable.

I have Christian friends and one of my best friends is a Priest who visits me almost every week.  We watch movies together and he plays with my cat.  Friends like him really show me the “love of Jesus” because nothing he has ever said to me has been hurtful.  Those are the best friends which one could possibly have I believe, where differences simply don’t matter because there’s something much more important than the intruding fear of one’s salvation.  The love for your neighbour which includes the respect for different beliefs.

When I poke fun at Christianity, it at times may seem disrespectful.  However if you meet me half way, you’ll likely see why I do what I do at times and likely will learn that it’s not something I do out of disrespect for all of Christianity.  I mentioned it’s a coping mechanism at times but it’s also a way to show my disrespect to the arrogant “believers”.  The ones who judge me from the outside rather than the ones who take an impact in my life.  So if you find yourself unhappy with me because of things I post on Facebook, I really should remind you that unless you have taken initiative to be there for me in my personal life, then you don’t really have the right to be upset with me…  That’s something I learned along time ago in regards to religious and political posts and I wish the same for all of you.  Maybe in time I’ll forgive you as well.

I Am Releasing a Very Important Book in Today's World

In a time when our rights are becoming uncertain due to new political powers, I am releasing my book into the world because it is needed.  The right-wings are gaining power and too many people on our side are becoming violent, hostile and negative.  I know that it’s a challenge at times to not be like this, so here I am asking you to remain calm for a moment and read my book.

People who have read my previews have expressed that this book will help many people in the struggle to be themselves in today’s crazy world.  Yes, it’s a book on witchcraft and being gay in right-wing communities, however with an ultimate message of encouragement.  Encouragement to be yourself, let your spirit shine in positive manners and simply stopping to enjoy the small things in life.  It shows why it’s important to not stray so far left or right from the general paths in life that you’re harming yourself and others.

Whether you’re left, right, gay, lesbian, bi, straight, black, white, Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, etc.  The overall tone of this book will help you if you read with an open heart and an open mind.  Because it can be a struggle to find love in a world full of so much hatred and destruction, but in reading this book you will find that being yourself in a loving and caring way will bring abundances of happiness in your life and if enough of us share these abundances, people’s hearts will change in a world with so much fear.

So become the devil which these extremist right-wings fear, because they don’t understand the love we are capable of.  Show them the devil they fear is nothing more than people crying out for love and acceptance, and that their actions are so much more pitiful than ours.  Because they also fear that we are capable of the same love that they are and until they see it for themselves, we have so much loving to do.

I present to you, Becoming the Devil They Fear: A Gay Book of Shadows.

You can read previews from the book here.

You can order copies here.